Tiresome

If you maintain a list of plants never to add to you garden, here is our submission: Saponaria officinalis - soapwort. It is too aggressive, it grows too tall, it falls over and smothers other plants, the flowers are pretty enough colour but are so densely packed on the very end of the stem that they coalesce into an amorphous splodge, and they seem to fade and decay almost as soon as they have bloomed. It spreads underground over long distances and is ineradicable. We live with it because we have little choice

In some mitigation, it attracts insects, and we have seen hummingbird moths feeding from it a few times. We have not tried exploiting the property that gives it its name: its roots contain saponin, which acts as a mild detergent and creates a lather in water

Physical symptoms of Covid have mostly gone. My brain is recovering much more slowly, which has come as a shock. It is very disturbing to find it closes down part of your mind, your imagination, your will. MrsM says I'm always like this when I've been ill. Oh, OK then